Meeting
“What brings you to Salt Lake?” I ask
the man sitting next to me on the train.
“I was visiting my ill father in
Portland, and now I’m here for the
night before going back to Spain,” the
man replies.
“Spain? Are you from there?”
“Of sorts,” he replies. “I train
Christian ministers all over Europe
and Africa.”

Photo by Mark Spearman

“What’s taking you to Dallas?” I
ask the woman sitting next to me on
the airplane.
“I just moved there from
California. I’m coming back from
visiting my family.”
At one point in life, everyone is a
stranger. When we first come into the
world as infants, we haven’t met the
people that we will live with for the
next eighteen years. When we move
to new towns, travel the world, or
even walk around in a grocery store,
we are surrounded by strangers. I
love the feeling that I get when I’m
surrounded by these people I don’t
know yet.
Who are they? I ask myself. Where
did they come from? How did they
get to this Wal-Mart at this time?
Why are they flying to this city?
What’s their story? Are they married?
Children? No children? Education?

Where has this life taken them?
Strangers excite me because they
are new people to connect with,
and we can never know where that
connection will lead. I met the woman
on the flight to Dallas again six
weeks after that flight. I was serving a
mission for my church, and our paths
crossed again. Instead of sitting next
to her in a semi-comfortable airplane
chair, we were in her living room,
her boyfriend sitting next to her, as I
shared what I had been asked to share
as a missionary. Did I know that would
happen the first time I spoke with her?
No. I simply wanted to get to know
her because our paths had crossed.
In the children’s book Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry
Potter doesn’t have any friends when
he boards the train to school. He is
surrounded by strangers—strangers
with magic, a thing he learned was
real only a few weeks previous. As
Harry sits alone in a compartment,
a redheaded young man asks Harry
if the seat across from him is taken.
Harry replies it is not. Harry could
have replied and said it was taken.
He doesn’t, though. He talks to the
stranger who would become his
strongest friend. If Harry hadn’t
spoken with many strangers—Hagrid,
Fred, George, Hermione, Draco, and
many more—he wouldn’t have been

able to defeat the Dark Lord and
bring peace to his life. Strangers can
turn out to be the most important
people in the world, and all we have
to do is speak with them.
There is always a huge fear when
it comes to speaking with strangers.
When we’re younger, we are trained
to not speak with strangers. But as we
get older, we—myself included—need
to open up more. There are people
whom we can help and who can help
us if we but talk with them. This life
becomes very dull and boring if we
don’t open our mouths and connect
with strangers. How boring would
Harry Potter’s life have been if he
hadn’t talked to strangers? His would
have been the story of a young boy
who sits on a train alone going to one
of the most amazing places in fiction,
never finding any friends and never
defeating Dark Lords, a basilisk, and
evil wizards and ultimately finding
true happiness and peace.
As you travel, think about the people
around you. Smile at them. But, most
importantly, open your mouth and ask,
“Where are you going?” Who knows,
you might even find a new friend who
can help you save the world.